


Three Guns and One Goes Off

by thought



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scenes, Season 3, give the Wonder Twins to Lovelace 2K17, nobody here has feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 18:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13083045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: 'One's empty, one's not fast enough'In which Isabel Lovelace accidentally steals herself some SI-5 agents.





	Three Guns and One Goes Off

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in Season 3, which is a wild goddamn ride if you just listen to the Lovelace + Wonder Twins scenes  
> Unbetaed, sorry

 

"You liiiike her," Jacobi says, when he finds Maxwell still hunched over the consul in the Urania after he's briefed Kepler on the Lovelace situation.

"Don't be gross. Also, have you always been this terrible an actor and I didn't notice, or was today just special?"

"Excuse you, I was completely convincing. There was playful banter, conspiracy as trust-building, serious agent face to keep things believable. I even thought I did pretty well at the emotional bonding moment. I convinced you."

"You didn't. That's why i asked."

"Anyway, can we get back to the part where you were practically fluttering your eyelashes over her wiring? And how you're _still_ here poking at it an hour later? Either you have a plan, in which case you totally have to tell me, secret spy agent rules, or you're having a feeling, in which case I need to mock you mercilessly for at least a month. And all this in addition to your Hera thing. God, I love space. Let's stay here forever."

She makes a face. "Don't joke, Kepler might hear you. And for the record, I was just showing professional admiration."

"You want to be her friiieeend."

"Really though, I can probably get access to your personnel file if you want. You just let me know."

"You're hilarious. Also, you're welcome for the save."

"Ugh, the archives thing? She would have thought I was joking even without your helpful hint."

"She really wouldn't have," he says, dryly. "We're on a ship of fluffy marshmallows, Maxwell. They're very aware how squishable they are."

"That metaphor went to a weird place. Why didn't we pack marshmallows?"

"The space-taken to deliciousness ratio didn't balance out."

"Anyway, what did Kepler say?"

He shrugs. "Not much. I think she amuses him. I also didn't mention our little bit of theatre, incidentally. I saw your screen a couple times."

"Yeah, I figured. But how could I not? You weren't wrong when you said this was a good opportunity."

"Yeah. And I wasn't wrong when I said it probably can't happen again. Don't piss him off when we're stuck on a tin can in the vast uncaring void."

"Stop projecting your existential crises on to me."

"Stop giving Kepler reasons to murder us in our sleep. Did you have to be quite so honest with Lovelace about your unhealthy belief that you're entitled to every piece of information literally ever? There's bonding via conspiracy and then there's showing legitimate cracks in the team to our marshmallows."

"Lovelace isn't a marshmallow," Maxwell says, thoughtfully. "She's like, at least a gummy bear."

"I'm leaving," says Jacobi.

***

 

"Ok," Maxwell says, shoving her tablet away from her and letting it float off across the room. "That's it. We're doing it."

Jacobi doesn't look up from his sketches for the launcher. "But where are we going to find blue hair dye in space, Alana?"

"You're hilarious. Come on."

He adds a fuse then immediately erases it. "Busy."

"Don't care."

"And yet I remain busy."

She leans in over his shoulder, one hand fisted in the back of his shirt to keep her in place.

"Go away," he says, even as he adjusts his tablet so she has a clearer view of his blueprints.

"Wouldn't it be nice," she says, scrolling absently with a finger, "If we actually had enough information to do our jobs? You're going to hit a brick wall right here, see?" She's switched over to his fuel calculations. "Because it's literally impossible to finish this without a number for weight, and I can't give you that as long as I don't know *exactly* what equipment needs to be on board. Right now with what Kepler's given us I could pack half the Urania's onboard computer and all of Hera's external scanners in there. I need some clarity."

"You want to take another crack at his files."

"Yup."

Jacobi sighs. She's right, of course. There's a reason he'd been playing around with the design and ignoring the fuel and launch speed files.

"Fine," he says. "But if he kills us I'm blaming you."

"If he kills us I'm haunting him right out the airlock," she says, darkly.

They get to the Urania without encountering anyone, which, given Maxwell's current lack of civility, is definitely a good thing. She asks Hera to let them know if Kepler looks like he's headed towards the Urania, and settles herself in front of the consul.

"I'll do hardware, you do software," Jacobi says. Maxwell doesn't respond, which is fair, it was kind of redundant statement anyway. He's still not sure he wants to do this.

The first few steps are tedious, no real challenge to them especially now that he'd seen what Lovelace had done and can replicate easily. He waits for Maxwell to give him the go ahead to actually start pulling chips out, using the spare time to stare listlessly at his calculations in hopes that he'll stumble across an answer that doesn't involve going behind Kepler's back.

Maxwell swears under her breath. "There is no way he upgraded his security since the last time we did this," she says. "He can barely update his phone."

"I mean," Jacobi says, "he's old. He's more comfortable in Linux than he is in Android. And he has a hard time getting the touch screens to recognize his fingers."

"I know, but this is... what, did he download a security patch last time he called Canaveral?"

"You joke, but that would probably make sense."

"Why wouldn't he ask me to improve his security if he was that concerned?"

"Um. Because he probably knows you'd just use the opportunity to leave yourself a back door?"

"He should be used to this by now! What did he expect when he hired me?"

"Look, can you get in or not? Because if not I'd really like to not be here anymore."

"Jesus, Jacobi, if you're that scared of getting caught you can just leave. I'd hate for Kepler to make you sleep on the proverbial couch."

Naturally, that's when Lovelace walks in.

"Well," she says. "How the tables have turned."

"Thanks, Hera," Jacobi says, expressionless.

"You only said to warn you about Colonel Kepler," Hera points out.

"I'm hurt," Lovelace says. "You didn't even invite me to the second meeting of the need-to-know club. I would've brought cookies."

"Are you here for a reason?" Maxwell asks.

"I am. Kepler's looking for you. He wants a progress update on the launch."

"Haha," says Jacobi. "Look, Maxwell, pull the radiographic data from the star, that'll at least give us a vague idea of what we're looking for. It's still not enough for exact measurements, but it should satisfy the Colonel that we're making progress."

Maxwell drops her hands from the consul. "Oh," she says, smirking. "Ohhhhhhh. You haven't even bothered to pull the star data yet, have you? I should've realized."

"What?" he says, irritably.

She pushes herself away from the consul, hands raised, and settles beside Lovelace. "You go ahead and bring up that info, Jacobi."

"Seriously? I don't get what you're trying to do here."

"Just bring it up."

Lovelace is watching them like a tennis match. Maxwell folds her arms and drums her fingers against her elbow. Jacobi swings over to the consul and starts typing. It only takes him a minute to realize what Maxwell is waiting for.

"Access denied?!"

"There it is."

"What do you mean, access denied?" He tries going after the files manually, digging into the directories and pulling each file individually, but as soon as he tries to drag them out he gets the same error.

"It's not a mistake," Maxwell says. Jacobi switches the user access from Maxwell's to his own and tries again. Still nothing.

"This can't be right," he says.

"Soooo should I tell Kepler you have no progress to report, then?" Lovelace asks, the corner of her mouth tilting up.

"And _this_ is why we need to get into his system," Maxwell says. Jacobi nods. There are a lot of things about this mission that have been strange, but Kepler keeping them from the relatively harmless information they need to do their very important jobs effectively is unusual on a whole other level. So, either Kepler's being deliberately obstructive (which could be for reasons ranging from 'he's still bitter about Italy and/Or McDonalds and wants them to suffer', to 'he doesn't actually want this part of the mission to be a success but can't risk telling them that outright'), or the information isn't quite so harmless as previously assumed.

"Just… tell him we're working on it," Maxwell says. “Stall him.” Lovelace doesn't move.

"Hey, I'm in no big hurry. You guys need any help with your little project here?"

"No," says Maxwell, and pushes Jacobi out of her way so she can return to the consul.

Lovelace blinks. Jacobi glares at the mess of wires he'd been working on and wishes it was Kepler's face. "Don't worry, Captain, that's her being nice. If she didn’t like you she would have just thrown you out the door."

"I'll keep that in mind," Lovelace says.

Maxwell says "Somebody get ready to connect the Pi. We've got literally about 1.2 seconds between when I disconnect that station from the MSAU until the security protocols notice and erase everything on it."

"You've cloned the station?" Lovelace asks.

Maxwell nods absently. "Something like that. It's an awkward way to do this, but after our last attempt I have to get creative."

Jacobi crouches down behind the sensor station, Raspberry Pi held between his knees, hands poised on the cable.

"On my mark," Maxwell says.

"Uh huh."

"3, 2, 1, mark."

He yanks the cable out of the back of the sensor station and shoves it as carefully as he can, given the time limit into the adapter plugged into the edge of the Pi.

"Good, good, good," Maxwell says under her breath. Lovelace comes closer to look down at the sensor station, casually bracing herself with a hand on Jacobi’s shoulder.

"Uhhhh," she says. Jacobi cringes.

"I don't like that tone," he says.

"I think the sensor station is upset."

"Jacobi," Maxwell snaps, "Put it back. Now."

He unplugs, reconnects. The Pi makes some alarming noises he didn't actually think it could make.

"I hope you brought a lot of these," he says.

"More importantly, I hope you can erase the system security logs," Lovelace says.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm already on it," Maxwell says under her breath. A minute later, she shoves away from the consul, running her hands through her hair. "God _dam_ it," she says.

"Well," Lovelace says. "As someone once told me, you could just try asking Kepler."

Jacobi glares on principle, but she has a point. Maybe this is supposed to be one of those learning experiences Kepler was so fond of back when Jacobi had first started working with him.

"You know what? That sounds like a great idea," Maxwell says, and Jacobi swears under his breath.

"No," he says, at the same time Lovelace says

"Maybe you should take a minute--"

But Maxwell's already heading out of the room. Jacobi pushes past Lovelace. "I'm haunting you when he murders us for insubordination," he informs her lowly.

"I look forward to it," she says. He can't tell if she's joking.

***

Maxwell escapes Hilbert's lab as soon as nobody's paying attention. Hera makes a few concerned noises but doesn't stop her. She's lightheaded and it feels like there's something compressing her chest with each breath. Her heartbeat is rapid and reverberates through her head like a jackhammer.

Hilbert had wanted her to stay at least another 12 hours, but she has never made a single positive association with anything medical in her entire life, and the more Jacobi pretended not to fret and Hilbert frowned at her like an irritating specimen and Eiffel loitered in a cloud of meaningless pop-culture noise, the more impossible staying had become.

She'd been too vulnerable, lying down, straps across her body feeling more and more like restraints even though she knew she could release them whenever she wanted. Every time she coughed they all looked at her and remembered why she was there, were reminded of her failure, her utter incompetency, her need to be rescued. It's too much attention. The shame makes her more sick than the aftereffects of the heat.

She and Jacobi are still sharing quarters, even though there are no shortage of rooms on the Hephaestus. Kepler hasn't moved off the Urania but he'd strongly implied that they should. She wonders if Jacobi will take the hint of her escape from Medical and stay out of their room if she goes back there. Given how he'd been hovering, she doubts it.

She keeps moving along down the corridors of the station, figuring she'll eventually find somewhere quiet to curl up and lick her wounded pride in peace.

She's one of Warren Kepler’s hand-picked intelligence operatives, so she notices Lovelace before Lovelace notices her, but she's also maybe a tiny bit on the verge of passing out, so she doesn't manage to stop her forward momentum in time to stay hidden.

"Really?" Lovelace says, irritably. Maxwell glares defensively.

"I didn't even run into you, don't whine."

Lovelace groans. "That's not why-- ok, you know what, never mind."

Maxwell glares harder. Her face kind of hurts, and she can still feel the imprint of the oxygen mask across the bridge of her nose. "No, please, enlighten me."

"I have an eight hour shift in twenty minutes because your boss is a sadist," Lovelace says, instead. "Come on."

"What?"

Lovelace grabs her arm and kicks off the wall, toeing Maxwell behind her. Maxwell spends a few seconds focusing solely on not tipping over embarrassingly. God, her head hurts.

"Captain," she says, once she's righted herself, "I'm really not sure what you think you're doing, but--"

"You need to rest," Lovelace cuts her off. Maxwell _hates_ when people cut her off. "Jacobi's mother-henning, Eiffel's an awkward guilt turtle, and I'm sure once Kepler's done yelling at Minkowski he'll be ready to yell at you. So I figure you can stay in my room while I'm on shift."

"I really don't think that's necessary."

"Where were you planning to go?"

"I don't see how that's your concern."

"I already talked Jacobi through one freak-out today. I don't need a repeat when you disappear and we find you shriveled up in an air vent in three weeks."

"Putting aside that... really disgusting mental image -- Captain, when was your last psych eval? -- Jacobi didn't freak out."

"How do you know? You were a little passed out and in imminent peril at the time."

Maxwell tries to pull away from Lovelace but the other woman has momentum and decent health on her side. "I know him. He didn't freak out. He did exactly what he had to do to make sure things went the way Colonel Kepler wanted them to."

"Ok, ok, you're right. He didn't freak out. He was a perfect goddamn professional. He's also really alarmingly good at repressing his feelings."

Maxwell huffs. "It's not re-- ok, yes he is, but also just because you don't see the emotion doesn't mean it's not there."

She's babbling. She needs to shut up. She needs to get out of Lovelace's hold.

"Hmm," Lovelace says, helpfully. "He was worried about you."

"I'm aware, thank you. You don't have to keep rubbing it in."

"I wasn't--" Lovelace cuts herself off, then shakes her head and continues, more slowly, like she's not quite certain about her words. Maxwell used to do the same thing until she realized if you just talk very quickly nobody wants to admit they don't understand. "I didn't mean it in a negative way. I just wanted you to know because typically people like it when they know someone cares about them. But now that I think about it, I was probably just stating the obvious. Sorry."

"You can make it up to me by letting go of me."

They're almost at the door to Lovelace's quarters. Lovelace grabs onto a strap on the wall and twists them so Maxwell is in front of her, Lovelace's back against the wall. "Listen. You look like shit. Now you can either use my room, go back to your own room, or go back to Medical. Those are your three choices."

Maxwell scoffs. "I really don't think you have the authority to be giving anyone orders, especially me."

Lovelace's eyebrows go up. "You wanna call Kepler and find out?"

Maxwell does not, in fact, want to call Kepler for literally any reason. She glares sullenly down at the deck plating.

"Do you have a problem with me?" Lovelace asks, exhaling heavily. "I thought we were getting along."

God, she sounds like a child. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to put this woman in charge of a spaceship? "Of course not," Maxwell says, and she knows she doesn't sound sincere. Truthfully she has a problem with this entire goddamn mission, Lovelace can get the fuck in line.

"Sure," Lovelace says. "So, what's your choice going to be?"

Maxwell says, "I see how you got your crew killed if your command style is just bullying people until they go along with you."

Lovelace's face does something Maxwell can't interpret. "This is about the painkillers, isn't it?"

"No," Maxwell says, about half a second before she realizes that it absolutely is.

"It wasn't actually a concern, Selberg just had to record it because he's an asshole. Or because of regs. Probably both of those things, actually. At the time I could more effectively keep my crew safe if I wasn't in pain and pulling a gun on shadows."

"If you want the best from your people you have to be the best," Maxwell says. She feels like she's falling sideways which isn't actually a thing her body could register, and also the wall isn't moving. She probably should have kept the oxygen mask on a little longer.

"And you... weren't upset because you thought I was endangering my crew," Lovelace says, dragging the words out slowly, like Kepler does but also not quite the same. Lovelace pushes off the wall and hits the button to open her door. Maxwell has no choice but to follow her. Apparently they're done with that conversation.

The only indication that anyone lives in Lovelace's quarters is the sleeping bag folded military neat and a few fingerprints on the metal footlocker attached to the wall, probably engine grease or whatever the space equivalent is. There are no personal touches, no clutter. Maxwell's suddenly intensely glad she hadn't let Lovelace take her back to her and Jacobi's quarters.

Lovelace allows her the dignity of clambering into the sleeping bag and fastening the straps down, at least. It feels counter-intuitive, making herself vulnerable like this around a potential threat. It's not unlike how she'd felt around Kepler in the early days, and wow, there's a mental road she's never going down.

Lovelace rifles through her locker and comes out with a small zippered bag that she ties to a strap close to the bed. "There are water pouches in there," she says. "You need to stay hydrated. Also, no, I don't keep anything personal or interesting in here, but you're free to snoop when I leave."

"You're just full of obvious information today, aren't you Captain?"

"You're welcome," Lovelace says, and leaves. Maxwell exhales. "Hera, can you let me know when Captain Lovelace is at her post?"

"Yeeees," Hera says, suspiciously. "You really should be resting."

"I will," Maxwell promises. "Just... not here."

She lies back to wait for the all-clear from Hera, and wakes up to Lovelace and Jacobi standing over her.

"Congratulations," Jacobi says cheerfully. "You look at least 25% less dead."

"Ugh," Maxwell says, eloquently. Lovelace is smiling like she knows a secret.

***

 

"Oh, wow, ok, that's... really pretty, actually, can you just--"

"That is on fire, is what it is, and we are in space Jesus Christ don't--"

The thing nobody tells you in the Airforce Academy, or during the Goddard interview, or literally any time in your life, is the number of situations you'll walk into where you have to balance a very real and immediate fear for your life with the intense and equally immediate desire for a camera so you can finally win that spot on America's Funniest Home Videos. 

Anyway, long story short -- and fuck Kepler for ruining that phrase -- the part of her that is an excellent commanding officer (your crew is dead; all of your crew is dead; you shouldn't have survived) is telling her to make haste toward the shrilling alarms and raised voices. There's just also a part of her that wants to take enough time to think up the perfect one-liner to announce herself. And they should really have cameras on board. She’s making a note for her next adventure in space hell.

There's also the fact that the raised voices in question belong to Maxwell and Jacobi, who she assumes both have basic safety training and the ability to handle a crisis. If it had been Eiffel and Hera, she'd be a lot more concerned. They're in one of the formerly walled-off sections of the station where Hera's sensors don't reach, which always makes Isabel a little jumpy. It had been pure coincidence that she'd been passing by close enough to catch the faint echo of their not-quite yelling. As she gets closer she can smell something sharp and intrusive, probably burning plastic.

"If we suffocate to death I'm shooting you. And then haunting your ghost so I can shoot you again in the afterlife." Maxwell sounds mildly exasperated, which doesn't necessarily mean they're not all about to die horribly.

"I could make a joke about our moral character and fire and your childhood indoctrination into the cult of the giant man in the sky, but I won't. Because I'm a good friend."

"Friends don't set friends on fire."

"I can guarantee you that's incorrect. And technically _you're_ not on-- ok, ok, watch it, that... escalated a little faster than I was expecting, this is fine."

Isabel gives up on her grand entrance and swings herself around the corner into the doorway. It's a lab that she's never seen before, dust particles creating clouds so thick she's legitimately concerned about choking. Also, it's on fire. Or at least, one of the large metal basins at the back of the room appears to be on fire, or at least serving as the home to a fire-- "How do you still have eyebrows?!" Isabel demands, as a particularly ambitious jet of flames comes within an inch of Jacobi's face.

"Oh are you kidding me?" he demands. "Go away, Lovelace."

“He’s burned them off at least twice in the past two years,” Maxwell says at the same time.

"That's a lot of fire," she says, keeping her tone casual with an effort. "Anybody want to tell me what's going on? Or, you know, put out the goddamn raging inferno?"

"I pick Option 2," Jacobi says promptly. "Alana, can you hand me the liquid nitrogen?"

"No," Lovelace says, holding up a hand. "When I said put it out I meant make use of the probably-still-functioning fire suppressant system built in to the entire station."

"It was a joke, Captain," Jacobi says irritably. "I'm not actually an idiot."

"Uhhhh," says Maxwell. "About that fire suppression system."

"And we're leaving," Lovelace decides. She grabs Jacobi's arm and tugs him, protesting, through the door. Maxwell is further away, but the fire flares up in a new and exciting shade of green and she throws herself across the lab and out into the hall without complaint. Lovelace closes the door.

"Hera?" she says, and then, "Damnit. I forgot."

"You’ll have to do it manually," Jacobi says, already opening a panel on the wall.

"You got it?" Lovelace asks. Jacobi bangs his palm against the bottom of the panel, then types in a string of numbers.

"Yeah," he says, and they all hear the faint rush of venting atmosphere on the other side of the door.

"Ok!" he says, after a minute. "And restoring. This is fine."

"That's... a word," Lovelace says. "I mean, it's an inaccurate word, but it sure is a word."

"I'm just gonna go..." Maxwell braces her hands against a corner, ready to push off.

"Stay," Lovelace says. "We're all going to have a little chat about why you decided it would be a good idea to start a chemical fire in a lab that is entirely unmonitored and where you knew the fire suppression systems weren't active." Her voice stays even the whole time. She's noticed how Kepler and Minkowski get shouty when they're angry even when they're trying to project calm, and it mostly makes her want to laugh, so she refuses to fall into the same trap.

"Technically," Jacobi says, "we didn't start the fire intentionally." Lovelace's brain helpfully starts playing the song.

"You expect me to believe _you_ fucked up that much? Try again."

"I think I'm flattered."

"Don't be."

"I really don't think I need to be here for this conversation," Maxwell says impatiently. Lovelace smiles at her.

"What happened to the fire suppression system?"

"Nothing actively... happened to it. It's just... old. And a little bit broken. Kind of like most things on this station."

"Thanks for the update," Jacobi mutters, and then blinks a couple times. Maxwell frowns at him.

"You didn't know the system was down?" Lovelace asks him.

"Um. I mean... it makes sense that it would be," he says hurriedly. "Should be taken as read, really."

"But Dr. Maxwell didn’t bother to inform you, knowing that you two were going in to a room that possibly contained flammable chemicals."

"Listen, that sort of thing doesn't happen to me," Jacobi snaps. "I'm careful. This was a one-in-a-million incident."

Lovelace can feel a head ache starting up behind her eyes. "Nobody *intends* to set a purposeless fire."

"Objection," Jacobi says. Maxwell elbows him.

"Nobody," Lovelace repeats, louder, "intends to start a purposeless fire. And yet, they happen! Once in a million times, they happen. And hey, do you know where we are, kids?"

Maxwell raises an eyebrow. Lovelace waits them out. "On a space station," Maxwell says, rolling her eyes.

"Very good. And you know where unintentional fires are particularly bad?"

"Are we done yet?" Jacobi asks.

Lovelace takes a deep breath. Calm. Calm. She's not going to yell. She's not going to be that person. Nobody's dead. They are highly trained intelligence operatives, there was probably no real danger.

"No," she says. "We're not done, Mr. Jacobi. We're going to go find a nice quiet corner where you two can retake your safety protocols course."

"Ohhh no we're not," Maxwell says.

Lovelace smiles a tiny bit. She's aware it's not a nice smile. She's also just become aware that her whole body feels shaky and weak. Adrenaline comedown. She hadn't even registered that she'd been so tense about this. "Oh yes, Dr. Maxwell. I'm sure you both did it when you were training to come up here, but don't worry, we've got a copy saved on the Hephaestus servers."

"What if, instead, I redesign the course so it doesn't look like someone dragged its rotting DOS-based corpse out of the nineties," Maxwell suggests.

Lovelace stifles her snort of laughter. "As much of a public service as I'm sure that would be, the answer's no. Obviously you two need a refresher on basic safety procedures. It's my job to make sure that happens."

"I really don't think we have to listen to you," Jacobi says.

Lovelace hates her past self and also Kepler, past and present and future, just to cover all her bases. "In this instance, I really don't care what you think," Lovelace says. "Because clearly you weren't thinking five minutes ago. Come on."

She takes a risk, turns away and starts heading down the hallway. All it will take is for one of them to start to follow her. Hopefully, they don't just decide to shoot her in the back instead.

She waits a good ten seconds before she glances back. And they're there. Thank Christ. She breathes a little easier. Now as long as she doesn't lose them on the way to... wherever the hell they're going to do this-- she starts frantically thinking through locations.

They run into Kepler near the bridge. Because of course they do.

"Colonel!" Jacobi says, sounding relieved.

"You three look like you're on a mission," Kepler says, all deliberately false joviality. Lovelace grits her teeth.

"Dr. Maxwell and Mr. Jacobi are about to do a refresher course on safety protocols," Lovelace says, before the other two can start talking.

Kepler's eyebrows go up. "Are they? Well, that sounds like a very important topic to stay up-to-date on."

"Yes," Lovelace says.

"And it also... sounds... like a lot of time that could be better spent on working on the probe launch."

God damnit.

"Exactly!" Jacobi crows. "Thank you, Sir--"

"So maybe in the future," Kepler cuts him off, "you two should work a little harder on remembering your training. So we don't have any more... interruptions."

"Wait," Maxwell says. "You don't mean--"

"Safety is important, Doctor," Kepler says. "I'm just glad Captain Lovelace is dedicated to her job."

"But--" Maxwell starts, then falls silent at Kepler's slightly raised eyebrow. Lovelace feels a little dirty, being complicit in this with him. Not uncomfortable enough to stop, though.

"You three have fun!" Kepler says, swinging himself towards the doors to the bridge. "Feel free, Captain, to continue maintaining crew safety and discipline. But don't forget why we're out here."

"You just had to have the last word, didn't you," Lovelace mutters once he's gone.

***

So. As it turns out, spending four days in a tiny space shuttle after the violent and entirely avoidable death of what was either your best friend or a unique and willingly communicative alien lifeform is... not great. Daniel keeps looking at her and giving her the sad eyes as soon as she looks back. It makes her feel sick to her stomach.

Lovelace keeps touching his shoulder or his arm or the back of his neck when she passes, and instead of breaking her arm he's leaning into it each time. Maxwell can't tell what Lovelace is feeling. She's quiet, but she still checks in regularly on the data collection and cracks the occasional joke. Daniel's the only one it's working for.

Maxwell does not want to have anything in common with Eiffel. Bad enough they're the only people on the goddamn station that actually care about Hera. Yet she finds Eiffel's numb silence better company than Daniel and Lovelace's attempts to return to normal. Eiffel barely speaks at all. She's read the reports. Wonders how this could possibly be the event that finally pushed him past his ability to compartmentalize and repress the horrors of the mission. She doesn't even think he likes Daniel.

They're supposed to sleep in shifts. Eiffel's the only one who actually tries. Maxwell catches five minutes here and there, folded up in a corner behind one of the consuls, and Jacobi power naps for twenty minutes or half an hour before gasping himself awake.

Lovelace doesn't sleep.

Maxwell focuses on the work she'd brought with her. Nobody suggests returning to the poker game. If she doesn't think about the other Jacobi, she doesn't feel any of the six hundred feelings she's having-- some of them, she's pretty sure, for the first time in her life. She's angry at Lovelace, but not the way she expects to be. There's no sense of betrayal there, nor is there the familiar frustration of someone who does not deserve to have power exercising it. The anger she feels towards Lovelace is more recently familiar. But unlike every other time in the past four years that she's felt this way, Jacobi isn't there to back her up. She's angry at him, too, and this is the betrayal kind of anger, hot and sick in her chest.

Everyone else had behaved in character, if she looks back on it critically. Even her own reactions, if a bit embarrassing, had been understandable. But Jacobi had lost it, and she doesn't know what to do with that. He'd been afraid and he'd let it influence his actions and she hates him a tiny bit for it. Which, at this point, is pretty close to hating herself. If it can happen to one of them it can happen to the other, and that is unacceptable. They have to get off this station. Finish the mission. Get home to their labs and their video games and their high-end apartments that are just another ill-fitting placeholder for a concept of home that they've been running from for their whole lives. They do not have the luxury of fucking up, of being off their game. The collapse and the breakdown and the 24 hours of sleep all come after.

She and Jacobi send their written reports to Kepler as soon as the storm has cleared up enough that they can get an uninterrupted signal through, so when they dock Kepler's already waiting just outside. He grabs Jacobi's arm and drags him out of the docking bay without a word, lips pressed thin and tight. Minkowski's there too, so Eifel isn't, scuttling out the same door with his eyes down and his shoulders hunched. Maxwell doesn't want to stay and help Lovelace lock down the module, but she does it anyway.

Lovelace shoves a bag out of the module to get it out of the way and Minkowski grabs it. "Really?" she asks, holding up the empty Pringles can. "How did you not wind up breathing in crumbs the whole time?"

Lovelace shrugs. "Once you pop you can't stop, Minkowski," she deadpans. Minkowski snorts.

Lovelace turns back inside, coming over to float beside Maxwell. "Finish transferring the data to the Hephaestus computers and then go get some sleep," she says, quietly.

"Sure," says Maxwell, absently, working her way through the tedious process that is interfacing the Urania's much new tech with Hera's systems.

"And... Maxwell," Lovelace says, hesitantly.

"If you're going to say you're sorry don't bother," Maxwell says. She wants everyone to leave her alone for the next year.

"I wasn't," Lovelace says. "Hey. Look at me." Maxwell bristles, but Lovelace only waits for her to turn her body towards her, forcing her to look away from her work, before she keeps talking. She doesn't even try to make eye contact. Maxwell wonders, a little bitterly, how many times she's pulled this serious conversation crap with Jacobi. "I wish there had been an alternative solution."

Maxwell frowns. "Ok?"

"I just want you to know that I didn't want to have to make that call." Lovelace puts a hand on her shoulder and leaves it there, a steady weight.

"You still did."

"Yes. And I'd do it again."

Maxwell would have made a different call. Maxwell would have risked all of them for the possibility of saving Daniel or for the possibility of prolonged contact with an alien, either way. Kepler would have agreed with her.

"That's why you're the one who had to do it," she says, finally. "Careful what you wish for."

"I'm used to it. It's... reassuring, I guess, to be the one who keeps everyone safe."

"Not that reassuring. Your track record is questionable."

Lovelace clasps her hands behind her back. "You're going to have to try a little harder than that, Alana. What do you think my brain has been screaming at me these past four days?"

Maxwell's shoulder feels oddly cold without Lovelace's hand, and Jacobi and Kepler are long gone and she says "I'm glad it was you."

Lovelace actually looks startled at that. Maxwell already regrets her words, but now she's committed.

"If it were Kepler we might all be dead. If it were Minkowski-- if it had been Minkowski she'd be dead. I'm not sure about the rest of us. You're the only person on this ship who could choose that option that get away with it."

"But you disagree with my choice?"

"Of course I do! That's why I'm not in command!" Maxwell shoves herself away, exasperated. She didn't want to have to spell this out, and now that she has she desperately needs not to be here.

"Kepler would have agreed with you," Lovelace says. Maxwell leaves, because she knows that, she knows, she knows--

system error

**Author's Note:**

> So this works in canon but it also works as great backstory for my everyone lives au, if you like being happy


End file.
